


Sophomania

by Syntax



Series: Writings of Xarxes [8]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: College of Winterhold Questline, Gen, crossposted from tumblr: thespleenoflorkhan, justification for how a non-mage dragonborn can be arch-mage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syntax/pseuds/Syntax
Summary: When Alta becomes the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, she tries to abdicate it immediately.  She’s hardly a mage: the only school she has any real practice in is Restoration, and she doesn’t know much of that beyond some minor healing and whatever anti-vampire magic Isran was willing to teach her.  Hell, she’s not even all that great at the spells she does know.  She’s not an Arch-Mage, she’s a bard and a bowman.  Get someone else to lead the school.Unfortunately, the Psijic’s will would not be denied.
Series: Writings of Xarxes [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1284701
Kudos: 5





	Sophomania

When Alta becomes the Arch-Mage of the College of Winterhold, she tries to abdicate it immediately. She’s hardly a mage: the only school she has any real practice in is Restoration, and she doesn’t know much of that beyond some minor healing and whatever anti-vampire magic Isran was willing to teach her. Hell, she’s not even all that great at the spells she _does_ know. She’s not an Arch-Mage, she’s a bard and a bowman. Get someone else to lead the school.

Unfortunately, the Psijic’s will would not be denied.

So she ends up with a rotating schedule of spending at least one week of the month in the College to do whatever duties she feels like an Arch-Mage should be doing—reviewing reports, analyzing college funds, determining the proper course of action when things go horribly wrong—and the other three weeks of the month either at home in Solitude or in transit to wherever the hell else she needs to go in Skyrim. She writes and reads countless letters of things going on at the College, and probably spends a small fortune sending couriers back and forth delivering them.

The College likely doesn’t consider Alta to be their _best_ Arch-Mage, but she’s hardly the worst. It helps that she generally spends the first day back at the college every month running errands around campus to try and make up for all the time away, and usually comes bearing a small stack of rare books found on her travels that could find new homes in the Arcaneum. Time went on. The College adapted to their new Arch-Mage. She would be asked to help with shielding and warding spells by putting them to test with real weapons, would speak with the people of Winterhold as someone like them who put more faith in an arrow than a fireball, would look for artifacts and ruins and oddities on her travels that the College might be interested in.

Time went on, and as time passing in Skyrim tends to result in, there ends up being a dragon flying over the College grounds eventually. The students and teachers pour out into the courtyard with their spells and their wards, fully ready to give their lives for each other if need be.

Then comes their Arch-Mage standing tall on the central building, with a volley of flaming arrows and a cold Shout of _Joor Zah Frul!_

Something very interesting happened among those at the College that day. Alta had gotten into the school based on her healing magic, and largely spent her time as a student analyzing old ruins and texts to see what she could learn from Skyrim’s history. Her response when attacked was to draw a mace, and her response when attacked at a distance was to draw a bow. The faculty and staff might have known she had an interest in the dragon tongue and the word walls scattered about Skyrim—but they had never seen her Shout before.

They had never known she _could_ Shout before.

The opinion of Alta as the Arch-Mage changed drastically. It wasn’t very many groups of mages who could boast that one among their number was beholden to a form of magic so esoteric and specialized that one would have to spend almost their entire life to learn maybe a dozen Shouts of decent power. As the Dragonborn, Alta had the capacity to learn all of them in only a few years. Being what could reasonably be considered an expert in a poorly understood school of magic that had deep ties to Skyrim’s culture and history, it became pretty obvious in hindsight why the Psijic monk had named Alta the next Arch-Mage.

When asked about why she never mentioned her ability, Alta could only protest that she hadn’t thought it especially prudent information to give out. The Thu’um wasn’t _really_ magic, it was something else entirely. It didn’t consume magicka, merely breath, and in her opinion had no real business being accepted as a substitute for magic in a school focused entirely around the study of magic. Which was a fairly decent argument to make, but only made things seem even more impressive to everyone who knew _why_ magic worked, not just _how_ magic worked.

As a friend of mine put it: _“Magic is the imposition of your will on the world utilizing the power of Magnus. Thu'um is the imposition of your will on the world **because you said so.** ”_


End file.
